Spiralling knife, drugs, and gang crime in London has been leading many concerned Somali parents to send their teenage offspring, who grew up in Britain, away to Africa for their own safety.

With 50 to 70 per cent of members of the Somali community in Islington, north London, “directly affected” by knife violence and ‘county lines’ drugs crime, mothers who arrived from the troubled African country during the 1990s told the Observer they felt they had “no choice” but to send their children away from an increasingly dangerous UK.

Sadia Ali, the treasurer of the Islington Somalia Forum and a mother of seven, said she sent her 15-year-old son away to live in the country she once fled as a result of the threat of local gang violence in London, telling the newspaper that many other families in the area have done likewise for their children’s safety.